A native of Pittsburgh Nicotra earned a doctorate in rhetoric and composition from Penn State in 2005. Most recently, she has written a textbook for first-year composition called “Becoming Rhetorical: A Toolbox for Analyzing and Creating Written, Visual, and Multimodal Compositions” (Cengage, 2016); her newest project is a book titled “The Microbial Imaginary: Rhetorics of Tiny Lives.” She recently directed the Composition Program and teaches courses in writing and rhetorical theory.